


Murdered Sleep

by DoreyG



Category: The Martian - Andy Weir
Genre: Comes Back Wrong, Gen, Psychological Horror, Space Madness, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 06:26:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5446550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/pseuds/DoreyG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mark Watney isn’t the same as before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Murdered Sleep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fallingvoices](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallingvoices/gifts).



Mark Watney isn’t the same as before.

Oh, he looks the same. He even acts the same as when they left him, ever ready with an easy quip or a cheeky smile. But... There’s something different, something that lurks just out of the corner of the eye. Johanssen starts not wanting to be alone with him, Vogel reports a sick feeling in his stomach every time they get anywhere close to each other, Martinez swears that he once unexpectedly barged into a room to find his eyes gone _black_.

And once they start comparing notes, they start noticing other things too.

Medically, Beck points out, there’s no way Watney should be able to come back from Mars looking exactly as he did that many fucking years ago. Psychologically, there’s even less. Mark Watney should’ve been a skeletal, PTSD-Ridden mess by the time they rescued him. Instead he came onto the ship like a dream, smile firmly in place and only two supposedly cracked ribs to show for all his hardship.

Whatever they’ve got with them on the ship, it’s not Mark Watney.

They’re less than a hundred days from earth, a hundred days from landing and releasing whatever that _thing_ is on the world. Lewis hesitates for a second, as the information is delivered to her, and then nods. They can’t let that happen. And if they have to shove the hero of the hour, the apparent survivor of Mars, out of an airlock to stop it? ...Well, so be it.


End file.
